Problems importing excel data and outline level

[drober41]

Hi folks,

I'm running into issues when merging in data via excel into an M
project file. I'm exporting data from an internal project trackin
application to excel and then importing this data into an MS projec
2003 file in order to merge in the most recent dates. When doing th
import, everything works fine until it hits a task in the MS projec
file that does not have a matching task in the Excel file. From tha
record down, all tasks get bumped down a level when imported.

My MS project file only has parent tasks at outline level 1 and severa
subtasks at outline level 2 for each parent task. I've shown an
example of what happens below:

MS project before import:

Parent task A Outline level 1
Subtask of A, Outline level 2

Parent task B Outline level 1
Subtask of B, Outline level 2

Parent task C Outline level 1
Subtask of C, Outline level 2

Parent task D Outline level 1
Subtask of D, Outline level 2


Imported Excel file:
Parent task A Outline level 1
Subtask of A, Outline level 2

Parent task C Outline level 1
Subtask of C, Outline level 2

Parent task D Outline level 1
Subtask of D, Outline level 2

Resulting MS Project file after import - note the excel file does no
have a Parent Task B to match the one in the MS project file:

Parent task A Outline level 1
Subtask of A, Outline level 2

Parent task B Outline level 1
Subtask of B, Outline level 2

Parent task C Outline level 2
Subtask of C, Outline level 3

Parent task D Outline level 2
Subtask of D, Outline level 3

I'm using a user defined map with a merge key to import the data an
selecting 'Merge the data into the active project' when importing. An
idea of why this is happening and how I can avoid it?

Any help would be appreciated. Sorry for the long winded post.

-Davi

 

[JulieS]

Hi David,

What are you using as the merge key?

Julie

 

[drober41]

Julie,

I'm using a merge key of a 6 digit number with -a,-b, -c suffix
appended.
The 6 digit number is the unique id of the project in out internal
system that we are exporting the data from into the excel file.

For example:
300100-a is the parent task at outline level 1
300100-b,300100-c ...300100f are the subtasks at level 2.

I am also importing an outline level number out of the excel file, with
the correct outline level we want for each task.subtask.

In the cases where there is not a matching record in the excel file,
the record has just been manually added to the project file. I dont
think we've been assigning anything in the merge key field for these
manually added records. I'm wondering now if that isnt the problem?

Thanks for your reply.

-David

 

[JulieS]

Hi David,

I've done some testing with your scenario and I'm sad to say I can
reproduce what you report. Adding new tasks with outline level 1
doesn't appear to be "taking". I've even tried re-merging the
Outline level in the excel file after importing the data to no
avail.

Looking at the help info in the VBE the Outline Level field is
read-only. You can manually change the outline level by overwriting
(however copy> paste doesn't work) the value, but short of that
method I don't have any recommendations for you.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP